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Pan can on the Rio Grande…letters from one tough bitch

Monthly Archives: December 2014

You may have heard the term “chemo brain” thrown around. What that meant for me is that I couldn’t think things through, finish a coherent thought, remember why I walked into a room, or name of my 17th anti-nausea medication because of chemotherapy. Chemo Brain isn’t a listed side effect. But it’s real! These are some of the other names I like to refer to it as…

The “I can’t sleep because chemo f’s everything up” Brain
The “I’m on so many medications I just wrote a check with the year 2012” Brain
(PS – it took 5 minutes of me staring at it to figure it out what was actually wrong with it)
The “Bro, I am stoned” Brain (from both cannabis and prescriptions picked up at Walgreens)
The “What the F is wrong with our country? Everyone has bloody cancer” Brain
The “Is chemo really the answer?” Brain
The “Is this what dying feels like?” Brain
The “I’m feeling guilty for eating a quart of ice cream last night” Brain
The “I wanna quit but I have children and a family” Brain
The “I’m strong, I’m strong, I’m strong, but please hold me!” Brain
The “Give me your opinions when I freaking ask for them (beatch!)” Brain
The “Can I get lost in worrying about someone else rather than my own fucked up life?” Brain
The “Why is this form so complicated to fill out? Don’t they realize I have cancer?” Brain
The “Certainly this is working because I feel so terrible” Brain
The “Is there really a cure out there, but pharma business is preventing it from coming to market? Brain

PS – If any physicians or oncology staff read my blog, this post is for you. Next time you get frustrated with a patient remember all this noise (and more) is rumbling around in their heads.

PPS – I do indeed love my patient care.

PPPS – Except for you MMC billing. I’m coming for you next. That was the gauntlet and it’s been thrown, jerk faces!

You guys really shouldn’t have given me such positive feedback about my Sassy Pants post, because now I just might get annoying.

I have had A LOT of people tell me their opinions on what to eat. Now, I know I make some interesting dietary choices myself, so I don’t devalue all of the opinions people share with me. But, I’m gonna tell you the crazy ones and my thoughts about them. Hopefully, you’ll just appreciate my Lori sense of humor. So here we go.

The lemon water diet:

If you drink lemon water every single day you cancer will go away.

Hmmm. I have drank lemon water every single day for 15 years and I still have cancer, moron!

The alkaline diet:

The cancer can’t survive in an alkaline body. So consume foods that are low in pH.

Wait, was it high in acid? Wait, all rules are thrown out when consuming fresh, raw fruits? Geezus, I can’t keep up with this one. I want some soup already.

The juicing diet:

Consume nothing but freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices.

You clearly haven’t had to clean a juicer that often. How the hell do you have lunch with friends? Or enemies for that matter? Furthermore, I’ve paid A LOT of money for these teeth and I’m gonna use them to chew at least one meal a day.

The vegan diet:

I’ve got three words for you: Goat. Milk. Yogurt.

Any diet that doesn’t let me consume this isn’t a diet for me.

The gluten free diet:

Now, I actually don’t care for the way wheat makes my tummy feels. But it does make me feel like I go from a flat belly to a 4 month pregnant belly. I really don’t give a shit about what my belly looks like, but if it gets too bloated, it pushes against my liver and causes me discomfort. Also, I’m not gonna lie. I. Freaking. LOVE. Burritos. One of my throwback friends and I have made it our mission to find the best burrito in the LC. That post will come but it might take us 6 months. There are A LOT of places to eat burritos in this town! One more place… Ain’t no one gonna take my hummus and pitas from Tiffany’s away from me. Hell to the no!!!

The Hawaiian fruit from the corner store on Alameda diet:

I shit you not. I need to say nothing else about this one.

The colloidal silver diet via text message:

I didn’t even respond to this text message.

The sugar feeds cancer diet:

I’m not sure that there isn’t some validity to this. I agree 1000% that the American diet has too much sugar in it. To me it’s, not that one piece of homemade pie that’s the problem. It’s the fact that it’s the first ingredient in all baby formulas. It’s that no one knows what real juice tastes like, but we all know what Sunny D tastes like. It’s that more doughnuts are consumed than croissants. It’s that ketchup is the most consumed condiment. It’s that only until recently, one could buy a bottle water at most fast food restaurants. Wow, did I get off topic or what?

PS – I have a giant tumor on my pancreas. It effs with my blood sugar. There are times that I drank all of the apple juice I could consume, and at others, only a tall, decaf, soy, caramel macchiato is going to do the trick.